Tools is the fifth tab. It holds every utility in Pilot EFB - unit converters, wind and descent calculators, planning helpers, checklists, timers, a scratchpad and expense records - grouped by phase of flight rather than alphabetically. Nearly all of it runs on the device, and everything except Per-diem is free.
Find your way around
The hub is one scrolling page with three zones:
| Zone | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Search tools | A search box pinned at the top. It never scrolls away and reaches every tool, including the calculators inside the two hubs - more than forty destinations |
| Pinned | Your shortcuts, up to eight, plus a dashed Pin tile. Starts with four tools picked for your pilot type - Unit converters, Descent & approach, Crosswind and Fuel uplift if the app does not know it yet |
| Recently used | Appears between Pinned and the browse menu once you have opened a tool, with a Clear button |
| Browse menu | Every tool by section: Plan & file, Fuel, Wind & runway, Descent & approach, Conversions, Time & sun, Reference & learn, Logbook & admin |
The Manage button on the Pinned header opens the pinned-tools sheet.
How to find a tool
- Open the Tools tab.
- Tap Search tools and type part of the name. Results are tagged with the section they live in.
- Or scroll the browse menu to the section for that phase of flight. The calculators inside a hub also browse as tiles of their own - Required ROD, Top of descent and the rest sit beside the Descent & approach hub that holds them.
- Tap the tile to open the tool.
The full catalogue, by section:
| Section | Tools |
|---|---|
| Plan & file | Flight plan form, Airport distance, Track correction (the 1-in-60 rule), Weights |
| Fuel | Fuel uplift, Fuel burn, Fuel temperature |
| Wind & runway | Crosswind, Wind triangle |
| Descent & approach | The Descent hub's eight calculators, Holding pattern, Cold-temp correction |
| Conversions | The Unit converters hub - speed, distance, altitude, temperature, mass, pressure, Mach, true airspeed, time, density altitude, runway distance, coordinates and a pressure-altitude reference |
| Time & sun | World clock, EET and ETA, Sunrise / sunset, Timers, Duration arithmetic |
| Reference & learn | Learn & Reference, Checklists, Decode raw text |
| Logbook & admin | Per-diem (Pro), Scratchpad, Voyage reports |
How to pin your own shortcuts
- On the Tools tab, tap Manage on the Pinned header, or tap the dashed Pin tile.
- In the Pinned tools sheet, tap a tool under any section to add it. Any browsable tile can be pinned, including the individual converters and descent calculators inside the two hubs.
- Remove a pin, or move one up or down, from the Pinned list at the top of the sheet.
- Dismiss the sheet. Your pins sit at the top of the tab.
How to run a descent calculation
The Descent & approach hub holds eight calculators - Required ROD, Top of descent, Required gradient, CDFA profile, Stepdown fixes, Altitude gates, Visual approach and VDP - with a plain-English guide below them explaining the maths they share.
- Open Descent & approach and pick a calculator, or open one directly from its own tile or from search.
- Type your inputs. For Top of descent: current altitude, target altitude and the descent method - Angle at 3.0° by default, with Gradient % and the 3:1 rule one tap away. The answer leads and is drawn as a profile.
- Read the 3:1 cross-check beside the answer - the rule-of-thumb 3 NM per 1,000 ft - so the computed figure is never your only reference.
- Tap Send to... to hand the result on. The summary carries your inputs, the answer, and a "Reference only" stamp with the UTC time it was computed. Nothing is passed anywhere until you tap.
How to work out a crosswind
- Open Crosswind.
- Enter the Runway number and the Wind direction and speed.
- Read the picture: a compass rose with the runway laid through it and the wind arrow on it, or switch to the approach view down the centreline.
- Read the output card. Runway 27 with wind 240 at 15 kt resolves to a 13.0 kt headwind and 7.5 kt of crosswind from the left.
- Tap Send to... if you want to keep the result.
How to decode a pasted METAR, TAF or NOTAM
- Open Decode raw text.
- Paste the report into the Paste a report card. Several reports at once are fine.
- Leave the format picker on Auto, or set it to METAR, TAF or NOTAM.
- Tap Decode. The app's own decoders run on the device, and the decoded card reads like the app's weather screens - cloud, ceiling, temperature, QNH.
- Tap Clear to start again.
How to run a checklist
- Open Checklists. Four presets ship with the app: Approach briefing, Pre-departure (airline), Pre-flight (GA) and Shutdown.
- Tap a checklist to run it. Every run starts clean.
- To change one, tap the pencil to edit it, or long-press the row for every action at once - run, edit, clone or delete.
- To build your own, tap the + button (New checklist) in the header. In the editor, pressing Return on the last item's title adds the next item. Your checklists appear under Your checklists.
How to log layover expenses in Per-diem Pro
Per-diem is the one Pro tool in the tab: a single workspace for layover money.
- Open Per-diem from the Logbook & admin section.
- On the Expenses segment, tap Add an expense and log it by trip, with a receipt photo if you want one.
- Switch to Estimate and tap Choose duties to estimate a whole trip from your logged duties.
- Keep company or US GSA rate cards under Rates.
- Pull tax-year and monthly reports as PDF or CSV under Reports.
Free vs Pro in Tools
| Free | Pro |
|---|---|
| Every converter, calculator, planning helper, timer, checklist, Decode raw text, Scratchpad and Voyage reports | Per-diem: expense logging, estimates from duties, rate cards, PDF and CSV reports |
| Pinned and Recently used shortcuts, search | |
| Plain CSV export of Per-diem rows you logged before it became Pro |
Free vs Pro has the full pricing picture.
Troubleshooting
I cannot pin another tool. The cap is eight. Open Manage, remove a pin from the Pinned list, then add the new one.
The crosswind components look wrong. Check the wind source. Runway numbers are magnetic; a METAR wind is true and needs local variation applied before it goes into the tool. Tower or ATIS wind goes in as is.
Decode raw text put my report on the wrong day. A report with no month or year in its day-and-time groups is resolved against today's date, and the tool says so under the result. An older report can land on the wrong day; check the date line.
Per-diem is locked but I logged expenses before. Your rows stay on your device and the plain CSV export stays free. Your own records are never locked behind the paywall.
The tool did not remember my inputs. Each calculator keeps its last inputs on the device; the Decode raw text paste is the exception and is never saved.
Where next
- Home - the Quick tools grid and how to customise it.
- Brief - the briefing package the folder's tools row belongs to.
- Weather - the station workbench behind the weather these tools cross-check.
- Free vs Pro - what Pro unlocks, priced.